Seriously, I don't know where the time goes. Weeks just fly by here. Here's a recap of this past week on the farm. First off, we have a problem....a mole problem.....they tunnel
everywhere!
And wherever they tunnel, the grass dies. It makes the land look pretty ugly. So, Joel bought some traps, set them and wouldn't you know, he has already gotten 2 moles.
When the trap is sprung, the prongs are down in the ground and you just dig up the perpetrator.
The traps are strange looking contraptions that release the prongs when the spring is tripped. Works like a charm. Now, only 2,000 more moles to go....ha! I believe this is going to be an ongoing issue.
Then last Saturday we drove way up into Virginia while my brother, Tim and his wife, Denise, drove south from Penna. to meet us. Joel and I purchased Tim's old Polaris ATV months ago, but something called "winter" intervened and prevented our attempts to drive to Penna. to retrieve it. When Denise called and asked if we'd like to meet them halfway between for a handoff we readily agreed.
Tim is quite experienced at driving the ATV into the bed of his truck.....
....and he thought nothing of just backing it down over 2 planks of wood onto the lawn behind a Cracker Barrel where we met up.
And he loaded it right onto our trailer....easy peasy....for him, that is.
Let the testosterone begin to flow........see this here thingamajiggy? It does this and that......yeah, Joel was eating it all up. He was practically salivating just thinking about the fun he was going to have driving this baby all over the farm.
The Polaris is in great shape and Tim did a super job prepping it for us. Everything has been lubed, oiled, aired up, and cleaned so all we have to do is drive it. Thanks, Tim, for all your hard work.
Now let's go inside and eat!
As we were driving back home, I took a quick pic of the forsythia lining the highway in one of the valleys. At home on the plateau the Spring buds are just starting to come out so it was a treat to see all the lovely early color along the highway in some of the warmer valleys.
These Bradford Pear trees were in full bloom......and the drive home was loaded with them! How beautiful!
On Sunday the guys unloaded the Polaris and jumped right in and headed for our woods. They were having such a good time testing out how the ATV managed to drive over rocks and charge right thru small trees.
Nothing like grown "boys" and their toys!
See those grins? Yeah, they'll be doing this a lot, don't you think?
Now how about some target practice? Isn't that what everyone does on Sunday afternoon?
Oh, yeah.....Dad said I could....
Jeremy had a chance to try out one of Dad's guns for the first time.
Do you think he had a fun time? Yup.....so much so that he wanted to do it all over again. And he's not a bad shot, either.
Well, anyway, that was our Sunday. Monday Jeremy went back to work and the rest of the week flew by as we did our normal chores. Then, on Thursday as I was headed into town, I saw a road sign that said,"Plant City Strawberries". Whaaaaaat? Yup, I stopped and picked up 2 large boxes of the most gorgeous strawberries....straight from the fields outside of Tampa. The older gentleman manning the stand explained that he used to live in Eustis, Florida and moved back "home" to Crossville in the late 90's. He and his brother drive a refrigerated truck to Florida every Sunday and each Monday they bring back fresh produce to sell locally. Wow! Works for me! And I bought the most wonderful huge tomatoes from him, too.
After putting 3 quarts in the refrigerator for our use and giving 2 to our friends I still had a lot of strawberries left. I hulled them all, layered them on baking sheets and Joel took them out to our freezer so they would freeze individually. After they were frozen solid, we brought them back to the kitchen where I bagged up 6 full quart bags of the delicious berries. Now we can make smoothies and purees all year long.
Ok, now we're up to Friday. Joel went into town and picked up 7-16' hog panels. You heard me right, I said hog panels. He's building a hog pen in preparation for our little piggies that should be arriving soon. Now won't
that be interesting? That's going to be a story for another day, though.
The wires on the panels are close together near the bottom portion of the panel so the smaller pigs can't get out, then the wires get further apart toward the top of the panels. They get fastened to 4"x4" wooden posts that are cemented in the ground. Joel and I marked off where we are going to put the pig pen so it will be out of the way but close enough for us to check on them. While we were at it, we also marked where the chicken coop is going to be placed. I think our farm ideas are all starting to come together.
Then Saturday we went on a field trip about an hour and a half away from here. Online I found a small nursery that propagates plants for our climate and we drove there and bought 10 blueberry, 5 thornless blackberry and 3 rosa rugosa plants. The berry plants will hopefully form a windbreak in the smaller garden up by our house. And the rosa rugosa plants are a variety of roses that are not especially my favorites to look at or to use for cutting and placing the blooms in the house. BUT, this particular rose produces great rose hips.....the large, bulb where a bloom used to be. If you leave the flowers on the rose bush in the fall, where the flowers used to be these bulbs form what are called "hips". They are a beautiful red in color and can then be harvested.
After harvesting, you remove the small hairs at one end of the rose hip, cut the hip in half and remove the few seeds. Then the hips can be dried in the dehydrator and later eaten, used to make tea, or combined with other ingredients to make medicine. And rose hips have 20 times the amount of vitamin C than oranges. How about that? Since I am allergic to citric acid, I can't get my vitamin C from citrus fruits but I can eat rose hips. By growing our own rose hips I know they haven't been sprayed with any pesticides or chemicals. Win-win! And I think it'll be fun to do, too.
So there you have it, our week in encapsulated form. There was so much more but those are the highlights. Hope you had a good week, too.
More later,
Deb
